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Christ the Lord was tempted and suffered for us. Come, let us adore him.Or: O that today you would listen to his voice: harden not your hearts.

Year: B(II). Psalm week: 2. Liturgical Colour: Violet.

Other saints: Saint Oswald (-992)

Birmingham

Oswald received his formation as a Benedictine monk in the Abbey of Fleury-sur-Loire in France and became Bishop of Worcester in 961. With St Dunstan and St Ethelwold he worked hard at reviving monastic life in Anglo-Saxon England after the disruption of the Danish invasions. He was noted for his attractive and accessible character and for the exemplary way in which he celebrated the liturgy. He had a special love of the poor; in Lent he would wash the feet of twelve poor men every day. In 972 he became Archbishop of York and administered the two dioceses. He died at Worcester on 28 February 992.

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About the author of the Second Reading in today's Office of Readings:

Second Reading: St Irenaeus (130 - 202)

Irenaeus was born in Smyrna, in Asia Minor (now Izmir in Turkey) and emigrated to Lyons, in France, where he eventually became the bishop. It is not known for certain whether he was martyred or died a natural death.

Whenever we take up a Bible we touch Irenaeus’s work, for he played a decisive role in fixing the canon of the New Testament. It is easy for people nowadays to think of Scripture – and the New Testament in particular – as the basis of the Church, but harder to remember that it was the Church itself that had to agree, early on, about what was scriptural and what was not. Before Irenaeus, there was vague general agreement on what scripture was, but a system based on this kind of common consent was too weak. As dissensions and heresies arose, reference to scripture was the obvious way of trying to settle what the truth really was, but in the absence of an agreed canon of scripture it was all too easy to attack one’s opponent’s arguments by saying that his texts were corrupt or unscriptural; and easy, too, to do a little fine-tuning of texts on one’s own behalf. Irenaeus not only established a canon which is almost identical to our present one, but also gave reasoned arguments for each inclusion and exclusion.

Irenaeus also wrote a major work, Against the Heresies, which in the course of denying what the Christian faith is not, effectively asserts what it is. The majority of this work was lost for many centuries and only rediscovered in a monastery on Mount Athos in 1842. Many passages from it are used in the Office of Readings.

40 Days and 40 Ways: Wednesday, 2nd week of Lent

Listen to me, O Lord,

hear what my adversaries are saying.

Should evil be returned for good?

For they are digging a pit for me.

Remember how I stood in your presence

to plead on their behalf,

to turn your wrath away from them. (Jr 18:19-20)

Jr 18:18-20

The life of a servant of the Lord is not always easy and smooth. Today we can see this on three levels: Jeremiah, the first apostles of Jesus and ourselves. Jeremiah was a reluctant prophet. At the very start of his vocation he tries to elude it by pretending to the Lord that he has a stammer. “A...a...a,” he replies, “I do not know how to speak.” Several times in the course of his prophecies he complains to the Lord about his intolerable loneliness and pain at having to stand in opposition to those around him. He was obviously a gentle and friendly person, who found it very difficult to point out their wickedness to his contemporaries and constantly to be prophesying disaster and doom on Jerusalem.

Then in the Gospel reading for today Jesus warns two of his specially chosen disciples that he can promise that they will share his cup of suffering and his baptism of blood, but not guarantee them the best places in the Kingdom of God. So on our own level our attempts to follow Christ must constantly take us out of our comfort- zone – the little act of kindness or attentiveness to the needs of others, the repression of that cutting remark which would show our superiority, the unseen act of honesty when we could get away with twisting things a little.

The intimacy of Jeremiah’s complaints to the Lord shows, however, that there is real love there, that he is close to the Lord and shares a special relationship which sustains him in all the strains and difficulties.

The Gospel reading for the day is Mt 20:17-28.

Action:

Invite someone to a meal and take special care preparing it; receive the guest as Christ himself.

Dom Henry Wansbrough

This passage is an extract from the booklet “40 Days and 40 Ways” by Dom Henry Wansbrough OSB, published by the Catholic Truth Society and used by permission. “40 Days and 40 Ways” has meditations for each day in Lent. To find out more about the booklet, or to buy it, please visit the CTS web site.

Repent, renounce all your sins, avoid all occasions of sin! Shake off all the sins you have committed against me, and make yourselves a new heart and a new spirit! Why are you so anxious to die, House of Israel? I take no pleasure in the death of anyone – it is the Lord who speaks. Repent and live!

Return to me, says the Lord of Hosts, and I will return to you. Do not be like your ancestors, to whom the prophets in the past cried ‘Turn back from your evil ways and evil deeds’ but they would not listen.